Former ABP deputy chair avoids jail 

A FORMER deputy chair of An Bord Pleanála living in West Cork has avoided jail after he was given a suspended sentence and fined €6,000 over his failure to declare his interests in a number of properties when a member of the board, in breach of planning law requirements.

Paul Hyde (51), had been sentenced to two months in jail by Judge James McNulty last June after he pleaded guilty to two breaches of Section 147 of the Planning Development Act 2000 which required him as an officer of the board to declare all properties registered to him. But on Wednesday, Mr Hyde of Castlefields, Baltimore, appealed the severity of sentence at Cork Circuit Criminal Court and Judge Colin Daly imposed two concurrent suspended sentences of three months on each charge, while also fining him €3,000 on each charge.

Det Sgt Shane Curtis of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau said he found Mr Hyde was obliged under planning laws to list all his properties and in 2015 he listed four houses at Pope’s Hill and two houses in Douglas, all in Cork city, a house in Baltimore in Co Cork, an apartment in Castletroy in Limerick and a site with planning permission in Rathduff in Co Cork. However, Mr Hyde had failed to include a small plot of land at the Pope’s Hill site and this was in breach of the requirement under Section 147 of the Planning and Development Act that he declare all properties.

Det Sgt Curtis said that in his 2018 return, Hyde failed to include all the properties that he had listed in 2015, and this again amounted to a breach of the regulations.

Defence counsel, Tom Creed SC said that his client had failed to register all properties in 2018 as they were all in receivership and he wrongly thought that this excluded him from having to declare them. He said that Mr Hyde had failed to register the Pope's Hill site in 2015 and 2018 because he had only a quarter share in the property, and he was under the impression that it was worth less than the €13,000 threshold in the legislation for declaring properties and it was subsequently sold in 2019 for €20,000.

Mr Creed said that his client apologised to the court for his actions.

Judge Daly said there were mitigating factors such as Hyde’s lack of previous convictions. Judge Daly accepted that Hyde had “suffered personally, professionally and, reputationally” in his profession as an architect from his offending and he believed the appropriate sentence was one of three months on each charge which he would suspend fully and he imposed fines totalling €6,000.